A Modern Tragedy

by Phyllis Bentley

  “Nobody is less anxious than I am to force liquidation on any man,” said Henry Clay Crosland gravely. “And the prospect of receiving a mere ten per cent of what is justly owed me, fills me with dismay. We have all suffered from the unhappy depression of our industry, gentlemen,” he continued in his stately, Victorian, rather prosy and public-meeting style, looking about him: “And we know how undeserved some of the resulting bankruptcies have been. Indeed, one may almost say that no stigma attaches to the textile bankrupt to-day. But the facts of this position must be faced. Even laying the previous liability on one side—which naturally I am by no means prepared to do—I cannot continue to supply yarn to Messrs. Tasker without reasonable expectation of being paid for it, and I imagine that every other spinner in the West Riding will take the same view. No firm can continue to pay for wool and labour, without receiving an adequate return or security for such return, indefinitely. A firm with smaller reserves than the Crosland Spinning Company would, I submit, have taken that view earlier. Therefore, Messrs. Tasker, who have, as I understand, exhausted the limit of overdraft set by their bankers, can no longer continue to manufacture. Bankruptcy is inevitable, and in my opinion, the petition should have been filed much earlier.”

  His clear exposition over, Mr. Crosland ceased to speak, and sat back in his chair. Around the table there was a depressed silence; Walter, who had listened to him with the utmost respect and admiration, now turned quickly back to Tasker, and fixed him with an imploring gaze. “Do begin!” his eyes begged; Tasker smiled slightly in reply, and laying down his pencil, opened his campaign.

  “May I first just thank Mr. Crosland,” he said in a quiet respectful tone, “for his admirable explanation of the position? It is a great help to us all, I feel sure, to have the whole thing put before us in such a clear and concise way. Mr. Crosland has referred to the unhappy depression from which the textile industry is now suffering. In his position as head of one of the largest firms of spinners in the West Riding, nobody has better opportunities of observing it than he. This depression has gone on a long time now, and there are signs everywhere that it is coming to an end. Oh, not to-day or to-morrow,” he conceded quickly, seeing signs of disagreement on some of the faces about him, “but soon. Now as soon as the depression is over, Messrs. Tasker will begin to make money. The firm has made money in the past, and will do so again. I don’t want to boast, gentlemen, but I think most of you know my abilities. I know how to make cloth, and what is more important nowadays, I know how to sell it. I do things on a large scale, and as soon as there’s any trade to have I shall have it. I have customers all over the world now. If each of them increased his orders by ten yards of cloth only, Victory Mills, and the subsidiary businesses which form part of Messrs. Tasker, would be working overtime for months. The ordinary shares in this concern have often paid in the past a dividend of fifteen, and sometimes as much as twenty-two per cent; and they’ll do it again as soon as there’s a general trade revival. Would it not seem better, then, to try to hang on through the remainder of this period of depression in the confidence that, as soon as it is over, the firm will make money hand over foot, and every creditor will be paid in full? Instead of stopping me now, and only getting ten per cent?”

  “But how can you continue, Mr. Tasker?” said Henry Clay Crosland irritably—he had been listening with the greatest attention, bending forward and holding his hand to his ear. “Your spinner and your coal-merchant, and the rest, can’t continue to supply you with commodities on credit for ever—they have their own bills to pay, their wages to find.”

  “We shall have to secure a little more capital, that’s all,” replied Tasker negligently, as if the securing of capital by a firm which owed several hundred thousand pounds was in 1929 a perfectly simple proposition.

  “And from whom are you proposing to secure it?” demanded Mr. Crosland with contempt.

  “From the public,” said Tasker boldly.

  There was a chorus of protest and enquiry from round the table. “Float a new company, you mean?” “It can’t be done!” They all looked expectantly at Tasker, who, with a gleam of triumph in his eyes, said cheerfully:

  “You’ve said it, Mr. Dollam. Float a new company.”

  “Impossible!” cried Henry Clay Crosland. “I won’t be a party to it. Why, you’ve no assets, man. You’ve nothing to go to the public with!”

  “I think I can show you you’re mistaken there,” said Tasker.

  “I won’t be a party to it, sir!” repeated Henry Clay Crosland, his fine face flushed with indignation. “It would be altogether unprecedented.”

  “We’re not in the nineteenth century now,” said Tasker at this, in a low contemptuous tone. “What’s the use of precedents when the conditions are so changed? We are fighting a life and death struggle, and you talk about precedents!”

  He was heard, as he intended, by everyone except Mr. Crosland, and conveyed the impression that Henry Clay Crosland was old-fashioned, arrogant, supercilious and a ninny in business affairs.

  “And,” continued Henry Clay Crosland sternly, “it would be wrong. Indeed, I might find a very harsh name for it, Mr. Tasker. I will be no party to such proceedings.” He pushed back his chair and got to his feet, staggering slightly.

  “How can you say that till you know what Messrs. Tasker’s assets are?” said Dollam quickly, rising also, so that in effect he intercepted the old spinner’s retreat. “That seems hardly fair, Mr. Crosland.”

  “No, we ought to give the scheme full consideration before turning it down,” said one or two others, who were by no means anxious to receive only ten per cent of what Tasker owed them.

  Tasker glanced quickly at Walter, who had been listening to all this with growing anguish. With a jerk of his head and a movement of the eyebrows Tasker seemed to encourage the young man to speak, and Walter, feeling that his whole future depended on his present powers of persuasion, said with decision:

  “In my opinion it’s only fair to hear Mr. Tasker’s suggestion in full, gentlemen.”

  They all, including Henry Clay Crosland, turned their eyes on him, and decided again that he looked honest, and that he couldn’t be a fool or Tasker wouldn’t employ him—he was Dyson Haigh’s son, too.

  Gathering confidence from their attention, Walter went on firmly: “Of course my stake isn’t as large as some of yours, gentlemen, but it’s quite considerable and it’s all I have, and so it’s important to me. And I’m more than ready to trust Mr. Tasker’s judgment in this matter. I’ve been working for him for some time now, and I know his abilities.” He added from the anguish of his heart, without quite meaning to, his young face suddenly haggard: “I don’t know what I shall do if Messrs. Tasker have to go bankrupt, I’m sure.”

  “You can always blow your brains out,” suggested Tasker savagely. “I’ll lend you a revolver.”

  There were cries of “Shamel” at this, and Henry Clay Crosland said sternly: “That remark is unreasonable and quite uncalled-for, Mr. Tasker.”

  “Is it?” said Tasker in a tone of despair. “No more unreasonable than your action in declining to hear any proposals but your own, Mr. Crosland.”

  Henry Clay Crosland hesitated, and a great many complex and conflicting ideas thronged his mind. There was the ninety-seven thousand pounds which Tasker owed him, which his firm could ill-afford to lose. There was Tasker’s textile ability, which neither he, nor any other man in that room, really doubted. There was his own responsibility to all these other men, the recovery of whose money largely depended on him, who were now pressing him to consider a scheme for regaining it. There were all the work-people concerned. It went against the principles of this old Liberal, too, to decline to hear the other man’s side; Tasker’s thrust here had wounded him severely. Then again there was that nice lad, Walter Haigh, who if Tasker went bankrupt would be left ruined, embittered, and probably workless, with an ailing father and an elderly mother to support, and Tasker talking about revolvers in the backgrou
nd. All Mr. Crosland’s nerves shrank at the thought of any scandal about suicide touching his name. If, on the contrary, the flotation scheme went through and proved successful, Walter might easily marry Elaine, and keep an affectionate and watchful eye on the proceedings of Ralph in the firm of Crosland, during those awkward years after Henry Clay Crosland’s death when Ralph was still young and gullible. Henry Clay Crosland had seen, in the course of his long and wide experience, too many young men cheated out of their ancestral businesses after their father’s early death, by unscrupulous “managers,” not to dread this danger for Ralph. There was such a gap of years between himself and Ralph; he could hardly hope that the boy would reach years of real discretion before he had to leave him. (Alas, alas, for Richard! One missed one’s son at every turn.) Now, Ralph liked Walter. Or would it, on the other hand, be better to extricate Walter from Tasker’s schemes? Find him a place in the Crosland business? But then, if Elaine did not care for him after all, married somebody else equally suitable for the position of Ralph’s business guardian? Well! It all depended, really, on what Tasker had to offer. Henry Clay Crosland was willing enough, he decided, to consider a sound flotation scheme; but if Tasker’s assets did not represent a considerable amount above the present liability—and how could they? he would insist on the filing of a bankruptcy petition at once, and see afterwards what, if anything, could be done for Walter. All this flashed through his mind in a mere minute, and he said firmly:

  “Very well, Mr. Tasker, I will hear the details of your scheme. But I warn you, my consent to hear does not necessarily mean I shall approve it.”

  “This is only an informal meeting, Mr. Crosland, after all,” said Tasker meekly.

  Mr. Crosland gravely bowed agreement, and re-seated himself in his chair. There was a general feeling of relief, a relaxation of tension; chairs were drawn up briskly to the table, and fresh cigarettes lighted.

  “Now let’s get down to it,” said one creditor. “We’ve been walking up the garden before. Statement of assets and liabilities.”

  Tasker, whose spirits seemed quite recovered, stood up, and going to the drawer Walter had previously seen him open, took out some papers. “Here you are,” he said: “I’ve had it all set out. There are plenty of copies.”

  He began to pass typewritten sheets down the table.

  “Oh, Walter!” He summoned the young man to his side with a jerk of the head, and muttered quietly in his ear: “Just persuade Mr. Crosland to have a drink, will you? He looks upset.”

  Walter gave Elaine’s grandfather an anxious glance, and noted that he did, indeed, betray his years. He mixed a weak whisky and water and offered it to Mr. Crosland, who, reflecting that he could hardly refuse to drink with a man with whom he was considering going into business—for if the flotation went through he himself would inevitably have a large interest in it—accepted the glass from Walter’s hand.

  Walter then again caught Tasker’s eye, which directed him to the window curtain; a shaft of light would very soon fall on Mr. Crosland’s chair. Walter obediently adjusted the curtain, looking out as he did so on the bright sunlit garden with wistful longing.

  The varnished summer house had been turned round in accordance with the movement of the sun, and Mrs. Tasker was sitting there in a low chair, reading a magazine. Walter was really astonished to find somebody peacefully existing outside this room, which was stifling with the heat of human passions. He seemed to have spent his whole life here, and each smallest detail of its shape and furnishing was printed on his mind for ever. He turned back reluctantly to the table.

  The men were all studying the papers Tasker had handed them, intently, and making comments; Walter perceived that they all had a surprised and hopeful air. He sat down in his former place. His chair was in the background, a little withdrawn from the table, and no papers seemed to have been placed at hand for him. He tried to catch Tasker’s eye to have this remedied, but was unsuccessful, and supposed he must wait for a sight of the statement till his betters had finished with it.

  And suddenly a tiny doubt crept into his mind. There was no copy of the statement for him—he could not see a spare one lying anywhere about. Tasker had sent him from the table—oh, on a very natural errand; still, he had sent him—at the very instant when the statement was being circulated. Could there, by any chance, be something in the statement which Tasker did not wish him to see? He tried to dismiss the notion as absurd, and not only absurd but utterly impracticable; it still persisted. At any rate it was easy to prove its untruth, thought Walter, angry with himself for such base and childish suspicions; he had only to glance over his neighbour’s shoulder, and he would see. He quietly moved his chair, and did so. The man, seeing his purpose, held the clipped sheets near for him to gain a better view. The assets of Messrs. Tasker 1925 lay open to his eyes.

  The first point which struck Walter was the number of subsidiary businesses involved. Walter was amazed and humbled; he saw the unimportance of himself, of Heights, compared with Tasker and his large schemes. No wonder Tasker was always so busy, rushing here and there to keep appointments, telephoning and being telephoned; no wonder he was brusque and peremptory when things at Heights did not quite go as they should. Indeed Walter marvelled that Tasker had condescended to spend even so much time on him as he had. Walter’s eyes then naturally sought the item in which he was personally interested: the name of Heights, and its valuation. With a little quiver of the nerves, for Heights was very dear to him, he found it. He started, bent over the paper more closely, withdrew it altogether from his neighbour’s grasp and held it up to his eyes, traced the line of the typing with his fingers. He could not believe that he indeed saw what he thought he saw. There must be some mistake!

  For the Heights Mill business was set down as worth forty thousand pounds.

  And suddenly Walter saw through the whole colossal swindle. He knew, without any further investigation, that several other items on the assets side were, like Heights, quadrupled in value. He didn’t know which they were, but Tasker certainly, and Dollam perhaps, knew—the afternoon might have been a drama for Dollam too. He saw that Tasker had had this in mind from the first; that he had secured the Heights business from the Dollams by some equally vile piece of trickery which he was now repaying; that he had needed an honest man of straw to start the place, to make it a going concern showing a paper profit, to sell it to Messrs. Tasker, and to be sufficiently inexperienced to accept payment for it in Tasker’s shares, which Tasker had even then known to be worthless.

  (He remembered here that Tasker had paid him in two instalments, so that the first receipt he had given for the main bulk of the sum, contained the words “On account”—that might be useful to Tasker as backing his bluff if the valuation were questioned.)

  The five hundred pounds which Walter had advanced had been used, in fact, to pay his own salary, and no longer existed; the deeds of Heights Mills had, doubtless, been deposited at the bank as security against the wages. Thus without finding a penny of ready money, Tasker had contrived to put himself in possession of a going concern which could be made to look worth forty thousand pounds on paper. Tasker had paid Walter in worthless Tasker 1925 shares; and so now if Walter spoke up honestly—as of course he meant to do—about the value of Heights, he would ruin himself by his own act. For if Walter questioned the right valuation of one of these businesses—one, too, of which he had indubitable knowledge—the meeting would, naturally (and rightly) suspect them all, the flotation scheme would be postponed for investigation, or perhaps at once totally rejected. Walter could not imagine Henry Clay Crosland, for example, embarking on a company flotation with a man who falsified his assets. No! If he spoke out now about the true value of Heights, which was worth, Walter thought now, in his wider experience, eight or ten thousand pounds at the very outside—if he spoke out now honestly about the value of Heights—as of course he meant to do—ah, God! If he spoke out now honestly about the value of Heights, all those fears in whose dr
ead shadow he had anguished for the past few weeks would become dire realities. He would lose his work, his money, his car, his new power of care-free spending, his father’s investments; he could make no contribution to his home; he might even be obliged to live on Rosamond; he would be associated in all men’s minds with that shady bankruptcy of Leonard Tasker’s; he would lose all that made life worth living; he would lose Elaine. Elaine! Elaine!

  “I suppose we can rely on these figures, Mr. Tasker?” Henry Clay Crosland observed. Though his question was blunt, his tone was polite and encouraging, for he felt he had done the man a wrong. The statement he held in his hand revealed that Tasker had plenty of capital; his difficulty was merely that, like the capital of a great many other people in industry at the moment, it was “frozen,” tied up in assets valuable as they stood but unrealisable save at a terrible loss—buildings, goodwill, machinery.

  “Every figure there is the valuer’s, Mr. Crosland,” replied Tasker indifferently. “I have the signed statement here.” He passed a further set of papers down the table.

  At this Walter looked up with hope renewed. Perhaps Heights really was worth so much, then, after all! But he found Tasker’s blue eyes fixed upon him in a hard, cruel stare. Walter blenched. Oh, there was no mistake about it! Tasker knew as well as he did, probably better, that Heights was over-valued. The accountant was his creature, or perhaps his dupe, like Walter; the falsification was deliberate; and if Walter did not speak out at once honestly about Heights, he would be a party to the fraud.

  Elaine, Elaine!

  There was a long, awful moment of suspense, during which Tasker’s light eyes stared at him unwinkingly. Walter perceived the man’s astuteness, in leaving him to make the discovery now, at a moment when he had to decide a course of conduct instantly, in public, in circumstances of confusion; without opportunity for discussion accuse his employer of a serious crime or risk becoming a party to it; speak out now or for ever hold his peace. (That was the marriage service, thought Walter childishly; ah, Elaine!) If he did not speak out he was a party to the fraud, and could not accuse Tasker later without also accusing himself. If he did speak out, Tasker would be sure to discredit his statement somehow—after all, Tasker had been his partner, originally, at Heights, and could easily pretend he had put in unconscionable sums. Walter, remembering that first confused interview at the Leeds bank, knew he couldn’t contradict him. But all that made no difference to the moral aspect of the affair, and Walter knew it perfectly; Heights was not worth that amount; he ought to speak out now, question the valuation. But Elaine! His father’s investments! Quick, quick! He must decide! Walter’s scalp pricked, his heart seemed to stop beating, the blood froze in his veins. “Death must be like this!” thought Walter, gasping. Then the moment was over; he had thrown the typewritten sheets down on the table, and held his tongue.